She sat out the next dance, another two-step, strolling instead over to one of the picnic tables not far from the bandstand to take her place with Tess and Zach and Jobeth. Zach’s cousin Nate Bravo sat with them, along with his wife Meggie May, who was round as a corn-fed hen with their third child. Zach had told him the other day that Tess was pregnant, too. “Three months along,” Zach had said quietly, pride and happiness glowing in his eyes.
As Beau watched, Jobeth ducked low, hunching her shoulders to the table, as if she’d like to melt right on through the rough wood planks. And Starr, sitting next to her, threw back her shining head and laughed.
Beau stood transfixed at the free, joyous sound. The band played on, a fast one, but Starr Bravo’s laugh was a whole other kind of music, the very sweetest kind. Jobeth elbowed her stepsister in the side and Starr made a show of composing herself. Jobeth straightened. In the light of the red, white and blue lanterns overhead, Jobeth’s face looked more than a little bit flushed. She said something snappish to Starr, who leaned sideways enough to bump her shoulder in the affectionate way that a sister will do. Jobeth still looked mulish, but Beau could see the reluctant smile that twitched the corners of her mouth.
About then, Beau caught sight of Nick Collerby lurking near the Bravo table. The dark-haired kid was about Jobeth’s age and had teased and tormented Starr’s sister from elementary school onward. Maybe Jobeth was worried he might ask her to dance.
And the toe-tapping song was ending. If he didn’t hustle his butt over there, some other lucky cowhand would be getting the next dance with Starr. Beau drained the last of his beer and chucked the empty in a recycling can as he went by. He walked fast, hoping speed would get him where he was going before he lost his nerve. As a result, in no time at all, he found himself standing right there by the table full of Bravos.
Tess and Meggie beamed up at him.
“Hi, Beau.”
“How’re you doin’?”
His throat felt like it had a fence post lodged in it. He cleared it, raising his hat in a polite salute and then settling it back in place. “Well, I’m fine. Just fine.”
“Nice night,” said Zach.
“Yeah. Real nice.”
About then, Jobeth giggled into her hand. A sideways glance and he saw that Starr was the one giving her the elbow, that time.
“Where’s Daniel?” asked Tess. “He always enjoys a celebration. I’d have thought he’d come out tonight.”
To keep his gaze from lingering too long on Starr, Beau made himself focus on Zach’s pretty wife. “Daniel’s feeling a little under the weather.” Beau had left the older man in his ancient easy chair, reading Western Horseman, looking kind of pale, vowing there was nothing wrong with him that a few antacids and a good night’s rest wouldn’t cure.
Twin lines of concern formed between Tess’s smooth brows. “Nothing serious, I hope?”
“He says he’s just tired. But I’m keeping my eye on him.”
Tess smiled her gentle smile. “Good. He needs someone to look out for him a little. He pushes himself too hard sometimes.”
“That he does.” The band struck up the next number. A slow one. It was now or never. “Ahem. Starr, I wonder if I might have this dance?”
The second the words were out, he wanted to suck them right back in. They couldn’t have sounded stiffer if he was a damn corpse. He’d meant to be casual and easy. How ’bout a dance? maybe, or Come on. Let’s dance….
Jobeth giggled again. If he’d had a pistol on him, he’d have fired a shot past her head just to shut that girl up. And then the giggle ended on a sharp, startled, “Oh!” She scowled at her sister and he put it together. Starr must have kicked her under the table.
And Starr was…getting up. It was going to happen. He would have his dance. “Sure, Beau. That would be nice.” God bless America, was there ever a woman so blasted beautiful? She’d let that inky hair, once chopped and spiky, grow long. It flowed past her shoulders when she wore it loose, but tonight it was anchored up at the back, little wisps of it kissing her velvety cheeks. And those eyes…
They were the eyes he saw in his dreams, lupine-blue. His breath was all tangled up in his chest. His heart stopped—and then set to pounding like a herd of spooked mustangs.
She walked around the table toward him, not smiling exactly, but friendly enough. Her snug red top hooked at one shoulder, leaving the other bare, revealing skin so pure and fine-textured, it seemed to glow in the lantern light.
She held out her hand and the mustangs in his chest started bucking and snorting. Damn, he was a sad case for certain.
Her hand was slim and smooth and cool. His own felt hot and he knew it was rough. But she didn’t seem to mind.
Her smile bloomed wide. The wild horses inside him went suddenly calm as he smiled back. “Come on, then,” she said. He let her lead the way across the flattened grass of the clearing and up the two steps to the dance floor.
She tucked herself into his arms as if she’d been born to be there. Between that red top and her low-riding jeans, a narrow section of bare waist tempted him. She was never going to know how powerfully he wanted to ease his fingers under the stretchy material and wrap his hand around that silky inward curve….
Uh-uh. He grasped her waist lightly, and his fingers didn’t stray where they had no right to go. He breathed in the scent of her. It was as he remembered it, hinting of some wonderful exotic flower, causing an old memory to stir…
Jasmine, he thought. She smells like jasmine.
Years and years before, when he was six or maybe seven, his mother had dared to try and leave his father. She’d taken Beau with her, to her people in Arkansas. On the cyclone fence in his grandmother’s side yard, grew a lush green vine thick with tiny trumpet-shaped flowers, the sweet scent so heady he would ignore the bees that swarmed over it, just to get close and breathe in their perfume. “That’s jasmine, Beau, sweetie,” his mother had told him, bending close, that heart-shaped gold locket she always wore falling out on its chain, gleaming in the sunlight.
His father had come after them soon enough and brought them back. And Beau had never smelled jasmine again.
Until Starr.
Careful, he thought. Don’t hold her too close….
For a moment or two, they simply danced, her head tucked against his shoulder, her scent enticing him, the feel of her under his hands making all his senses spin.
Then she lifted her head and met his eyes. “So…how’ve you been?” It was a safe, general-type question and he found he was grateful to her for asking it. Talking was good. It kept him from getting too lost in the feel and the smell of her.
“Working,” he said. “Keeping my nose clean.”
She tipped her head to the side. The wisps of midnight hair stirred against her cheeks. “Happy?”
The question, for some reason, seemed unbearably personal—intimate, even. As if she asked for the secrets in his deepest heart. His gut tightened and he almost missed a step. But he recovered. He pulled her a bit closer and felt the tips of her full breasts brush his chest. His Wranglers got tighter. Down, damn it, he thought. “I’m doin’ okay.” It sounded easy and offhand. Relief curled through him that his voice had not betrayed him. He relaxed again. “You?”
She shrugged, one slim shoulder—the gleaming bare one—lifting, her slim waist shifting a fraction beneath his careful hand. “Yeah. I am.” She grinned, as if the thought pleased her. “I’m happy.”
“Heard you graduated from C.U. last month.”
“That’s right. B.A. in journalism. Dean’s honor list.” She chuckled. “And yes, I am bragging.”
“You